"Ghost" MS Network Adapters ( I may post this in "Operating Systems" as well)

[BonzaiDuck]

I'm still getting acquainted with Windows 10.
Through much blood, sweat and tears, I have set up a dual-boot system of Win 7 with Win 10.
I have eliminated all the red-bang Event Log errors in both OSes, and any yellow-bang warnings that I can. Anything that remains is just a "benign warning."
I discovered in this learning process, after installing and removing, or simply swapping an SATA or NVMe drive, that I had "ghost disks" reported in Device Manager under "disk drives." With the kind advice and assistance of another member, I removed these. They had been "hidden drives" -- revealed by choosing "Show hidden devices" in DM "View." They unmistakably indicated drives that had been in the system, but had been physically removed.
Now I also discover that I have "ghost" network adapters. Here are the ones that are not hidden or "grayed out:"

Intel(R) Ethernet Connection (2) I219-V
Kaspersky Security Data Escort Adapter
Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
Microsoft Kernel Debug Network Adapter
Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface

Here are the ones which were "hidden" and appear as grayed-out "ghosts:"

WAN Miniport (IKEv2)
WAN Miniport (IP)
WAN Miniport (IPv6)
WAN Miniport (L2TP)
WAN Miniport (Network Monitor)
WAN Miniport (PPPOE)
WAN Miniport (PPTP)
WAN Miniport (SSTP)

[Bold versus not-bold is "analog" to the icon appearances.]

I might feel comfortable deleting "ghost drives." Now I'm wondering what to do with these eight "ghost" network "adapters." I did nothing to put them in DM -- they were just "always there" before I checked "Show hidden devices."

Should I just leave them alone? Could someone offer a decent explanation as to what they "do?"

 

[JackMDS]

Windows tend tp keep a track of Network installations. Most of these Hidden Stuff is Not functional and does not take any resources.

That said, if it is a problem try this.

Run Command Prompt on Admin level.

Ttype in..

netsh int ip reset C:\resetlog.txt

press [Enter]

Type in...

netsh Winsock reset
press [Enter]

Reboot the computer.




Posting the same issue in multiple Forums is "Good" by us you OS post is closed.
.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Thanks, Jack. A lot of these questions can span more than one forum. Or it would seem . . . A question of "who knows what".

It's "not a problem." It was just an indication, as with the "disk drives" ghosts. Don't go out of your way at this point, but if you can't point me to a good online "Command" manual, I should probably be able to find one. [Once -- I was a whiz . . . .at "DOS"]

Also, I imagine MS would've published a "Windows 10 Resource Kit" online, as they had for every previous OS version. Printed, they are large tomes to throw away after the line of obsolescence has come and gone . . So I'll hunt that one down, too . . .

 

[BonzaiDuck]

UPDATE: The operations you (JackMDS) recommended were executed. I followed up with a reboot. Those Miniport "ghosts" are still in device manager, so I will assume it is no problem.

Meanwhile, I need to update my Windows education, as I said. . .

 

[Mike64]

UPDATE: The operations you (JackMDS) recommended were executed. I followed up with a reboot. Those Miniport "ghosts" are still in device manager, so I will assume it is no problem.

I dunno exactly what (i.e., service, process, etc) reinstalls them, but fwiw, in a minor fit of OCD "OS-housekeeping", I once spent about an hour trying to get rid of them but no matter what "easy stuff" I tried, they always came back, and it didn't seem worth trying to pull them out by their metaphoric roots …

 

[razel]

They are network interfaces. Not hardware, but software. I'd leave them. They have always existed in Windows. It's just now they show it to you. It's helpful if you REALLY want to reset/manage your network interfaces. You can remove them, but if you use it again, it'll pop back up. I learned this when playing around with IPv6. I really wanted to remove the Teredo adapter after getting IPv6 working, but apparently it's necessary whenever for any reason Windows cannot connect via IPv6.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

They are network interfaces. Not hardware, but software. I'd leave them. They have always existed in Windows. It's just now they show it to you. It's helpful if you REALLY want to reset/manage your network interfaces. You can remove them, but if you use it again, it'll pop back up. I learned this when playing around with IPv6. I really wanted to remove the Teredo adapter after getting IPv6 working, but apparently it's necessary whenever for any reason Windows cannot connect via IPv6.

Just to spotlight my ignorance again to myself, I have a question about that.

Once I had set up my household LAN many years ago, I simply got used to configuring within IPv4 TCP/IP. Because I got everything to work properly, I never really investigated what purpose IPv6 provides to me.

What did you manage to do successfully with IPv6 that wasn't being done to your needs with IPv4? Seriously.

I'm really becoming disturbed at my growing intellectual stagnation -- next year, my 70th.

I suppose I could look it up, but I'm already trying to grab the compendiums like this one:


Windows Command Reference Download

But that's only current through Windows 7. Attribute it to my lackluster enthusiasm for windows 10, waiting almost a year before even trying it. I now discover they don't publish a "Resource Toolkit" book for Win 10 or an online equivalent identifiable as such, with the utilities disc.

What is happening to my world? How did I become such a slug? Not in any way due to participating here at the Forums.

Anyway, any few words about the IPv6 "experiments would be enlightening.

Well, I sure cleaned up my Event Log reds and yellows. I'm not dead yet. [Maybe I'll feel a bit better if I play a game I'm good at. . . ]

 

[razel]

Like yourself, it's part of our computer hobby and I was playing around learning about IPv6. Once it was working I wanted to see just how bad an IPv6 only connection would be for that computer. Luckily Windows will not make that easy since Teredo tunneling is burnt in. You can scrape it off, but I left it alone. It's a world of hurt.

 

[XavierMace]

The stuff you are looking at are virtual devices and are supposed to be there. Most of the time when people talk about ghost adapters, they are talking about traces of "physical" adapters that no longer exist. I use quotes there because I most commonly run into it on Virtual Machines. Somebody replaced the E1000 vNic with a VMXNET3, but Windows still has traces of the E1000 laying around mucking things up.